Grow Mercy

Michael Franti ‘Power to the Peaceful’

3 comments August 13th, 2007

“Scatter the peoples who delight in war” is a line out of the Psalms but it could have been a line from a Michael Franti song. A latecomer to his music, I was initiated last night, at the tale end of the Edmonton Folk-Fest.

Franti, bare-footed, and looking a bit like what you might imagine an old testament prophet looks like, and sounding like one, (except of course when he does Sesame Street nostalgia) is a new anti-war voice that is hard to dismiss. Because even if you don’t like his incessantly pro-peace, avant-garde reggae-rock, he is someone who has pointed his body in the direction of his words and taken, as he puts it, “the risk of peace.”

He’s gone to Iraq, sung on the streets of Baghdad, sung in Palestine and Israel, and because he supports troops–but not the war–he has sung to U.S. soldiers.

He’s not naïve about the complexities of conflict. You get the impression that he’s a listener and that as a result knows where to aim. He’s able to discern the big systems that delight in the dividends of war from the those of us caught up by them.

I grew up in the wake of “Universal Soldier” and “For What It’s Worth,” but I’m trying to think of anybody since Peter, Paul and Mary, Buffy Saint Marie, occasionally Dylan and Neil Young, that’s been as unshakably single-minded in trying to undo war and violence.

Franti, energetic, disarming, a presence, a hot band, danceable message-music, and a following, plus a realistic grasp on the Iraqi war…will he make a difference?

Logan Laituri "Soldier" of Jesus

Add comment August 3rd, 2007

Have been waiting to see what would become of Logan Laituri’s Christian conversion and subsequent convictions. They appear to be holding.

Spring 2005, back from the Iraqi front-lines, through the love and influence of his girlfriend’s family, Laituri became a Christian. He took the gospel seriously–especially the part about loving enemies–and was willing to go back to the front-lines but with the proviso that he would not carry a weapon.

Not surprisingly he was reprimanded by his superior as an enemy of America. Somewhat surprisingly, well, perhaps not, he was viewed by his girlfriend’s Christian-conservative father as misinterpreting the bible concerning war.

He tried applying for conscientious objector status but somehow the paper work kept getting stalled. Instead he was assigned to a detachment that would not deploy to a war zone. Then in October of 2006 his term of service ended. Today, he’s without the girlfriend but not without a voice.

A few weeks ago, in an open letter to his fellow Americans running for the office of the presidency, he wrote:

Over four years, 4 billion dollars, and 3,000 lives ago, our nation was drawn into a conflict that few of our number now believe was initiated with our collective interests or values in mind. As a proud and decorated veteran of this conflict, I have suffered for and served my country with distinction and honor. However, my dreams and quiet moments have been mercilessly violated by the voices of the victims of our national terrorism. In Iraq, their liberation has cost as many as 655,000 Iraqis their lives. Their cries, and those of their families, have been uttered amidst a flood of sweat, tears, and all too much of their own blood.

A voice is a small thing compared to a state war machine. But I still believe the world turns on small things.

Logan Laituri’s story was published last year in Geez

Secret to LIfe

2 comments July 26th, 2007

Perhaps this post might be an encouragement and even a shot of hope across the bow of your life.

You see, I’ve discovered the secret to life in all its dimensions. And it’s this:

One really excellent decision will cancel out the idiotic decisions of a lifetime and help you make less idiotic decisions in the future.

I made an excellent one 21 years ago today.

Granted, it wasn’t always easy. (This being a second go for each of us.) Even our wedding (shown below) was rather surreal. Almost as though we were observers.

Still, as we’ve walked this married path, we’ve gradually inhabited ourselves, (you’ll have guessed where most of the credit must go for this) becoming, I believe, increasingly more of who we are and who we were meant to be through a long journey of self-discovery, which, ironically, must always be done through partnership.

Here’s to excellent decisions for all.

Rage and Road Mercy

6 comments June 14th, 2007

This morning as I walked, I was witness to an instance of road rage. A man in a van, honking. Smashing the heel of his hand into his steering wheel. Pounding his fists on the dash. Yelling.

The air inside the van was finally too full to contain the tinder-dry rage and he opened his window to let it out. And out it came.

Everything–all of it venomous–all directed at one lady in a small blue car who misjudged the traffic light change and the line of vehicles ahead of her and wound up in the middle of the intersection preventing the van from pulling out.

The lady, wisely, stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the tantrum. Much the way, I’m guessing, she would refuse to acknowledge the tantrums of her preadolescent. But an adult male having a tantrum is a frightful thing.

I walked between the van and the car with some misgiving. The green stream carried on and finally tapered off a red light interval later. The intersection cleared and the van pulled away and left me wondering what this added and took away from his day.

What it is that sets us off?

Last evening over supper my son Mark told us about a construction site supervisor who perpetually speaks with a raised voice. It’s like he’s in a perpetual argument. Anger subsiding only in sleep. And perhaps not even then.

We are an angry bunch. This is an angry generation. We seethe. We hate spasmodically. We have scorn seizures. We curse within and we murmur audibly and beneath our breath.

We mouth breath in short gulps, the oxygen only reaching the top of our lungs, and the bile stays in our blood.

We conceal most of it, but occasionally–for some more often–it catches us in an instant and we find ourselves in the grip of an incendiary fit. The place for healthy venting having been lost.

Our desires twist us around their fingers. Our communal experiences are shallow. Violence is contagious, air-born, even recreational.

We have few models to counter all this. Certainly, for example, none in parliament. Question period produces enraged doubles. Everyone mirroring and mimicking each other–the object of debate being the debate. Any real dialogue is swallowed up and the issues long forgotten. We need to find our models beyond our "leaders."

We need refuge from our fear. We need a fortress from our miserly desires. Better, we need a mercy-light, and we need a love-light, held for us by someone with no axe to grind and nothing to prove.

We need to receive our lives back through a renewing of our desires…a reordering of desire through the eyes of someone without envy or rivalry. We need to open ourselves to someone with lots of time to wait at intersections.

Technorati Tags: Road Rage, Anger, Violence, Parliament, Question period, Father James, Beauty, Peace

Everyone needs a Poem

5 comments June 11th, 2007

I’ve been adopted by a poem. By a line in a poem. And by a small entry on the flyleaf of the book where my poem lives.

Tuesday last, I’m lying on a grassy bank in Crescent park, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, rereading Wendy Morton’s Shadowcatcher. I pause at the flyleaf and find my direction, my dedication.

All books have flyleaves. Andrea told me that the flyleaf is one of the greatest of inventions. It hadn’t occurred to me but she’s right. Flyleaves give you a place to pause, to gather yourself for just a moment. They give you time to let your eyes adjust to the light, to sip wine before the meal. Otherwise a book begins too abruptly leaving you no personal space.

But the flyleaf is also the perfect place for a short hand written note, a thought, a personal dedication. I have this in Shadowcatcher. It says, to Stephen, "who waltzes in and out of what matters."

That afternoon, when I read my poem, and dreamt again of waltzing in and out of what matters, the fountain in the crescent watercourse turned bright blue.

You say I’m dreaming. And I say, "Of course, but it also happened just as I say."

And while the blue was spouting bright a swan swam by, and a couple walked by, arms linked, looking into the baby carriage they were pushing, and some kids were throwing bits of bread on the water."

Everyone needs a poem." For Wendy Morton, who commits random acts of poetry, this is close to a mantra.

I think, as well, everyone needs to see their name applied to the front of a book. A dedication, a declaration that you are here, and it matters.

Everyone needs a poem. Here’s mine:

Everyone needs a poem.

And so when I came to the last poem in "Shadowcatcher," I left the grassy bank and waltzed down to a park bench, deciding to read it to the first person who happened by. It was a lady, white hair, seventy-five years old I guess.

I get her attention by asking her if anyone has ever read her a poem. She said, "Not once, never." I ask her if I could read her a poem. She smiles slow, and says, "Sure, yes, why not."

I read her "The Path." It’s a poem of ordinary memories of the land, of home, of old countries, of connections.

As I read I’m aware of my own odd excitement. When I finish I look up; she’s been smiling. I tell her I’ve just committed a random act of poetry. She smiles broadly and says, "Thank you," and continues on down the path.

Technorati Tags: Wendy Morton, Andrea House, Swans, Random Acts of Poetry, Shadowcatcher, Beauty, Peace

Jesus and Just War

4 comments June 8th, 2007

David Silverman / Getty Images

Before reading scripture non-sacrificially, that is, before coming to the place of reading all of scripture through the lens of the gospel, I was a "just war" advocate. In a way, reading the Bible through the Gospels instead of the other way around is the only way to read it against yourself, instead of for yourself, an admonition, I believe, of Karl Barth.

Anyway, before this kind of slow organic existential realization, I reckoned the best a Christian can do in the face of conflicting biblical messages about violence and about God, and in the face of practical realities of human rivalry, is to accept Augustine’s "just war" theory.

The criteria for Just War is:

the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

there must be serious prospects of success;

the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

Hattem Mousa / AP

Now, if there is an attractive aspect of "just war" it’s this: If administrations agreed upon these criteria, almost all of the wars over the centuries could not have been justly waged.

But then, it makes one wonder if there has ever been a "just war" and wonder, even, if there can ever be one…especially considering the last condition. So even as a pacifist, "just war" in this strict sense, seems somewhat attractive.

Of course WWII and the Nazi Holocaust is always used as the lynch-pin to support "just war" and to dismiss pacifism out of hand. However, while entry into WWII might pass the "just war" test, the argument would be on much better footing without the two nuclear strikes upon Japan. But that’s what happens in war; that is the ’spirit’ of war. Restraint becomes impossible. Violence blinds us and war becomes it’s own reason. (This is one of the lessons in Chris Hedges’ book, "War is a Force that gives us Meaning.")

Jamal Saidi / Reuters

As well, there’s also the historical scholarship that says that if Germany wasn’t so demoralized by the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler would never have risen to power in the first place. That we help create Stalin’s Hitler’s, Hussein’s, Khomeini’s, and Bin Laden’s, through our exploitive policies and scapegoating violence, not to mention our inability to "wage just war," is evident enough. The Middle East is too clear an example.

I may be wrong but I don’t see Jesus endorsing "just war." I see Jesus as peace-giver. But I also see Jesus as angry at injustice, and as actively putting himself in the way of oppression, but always in a non-violent way. Jesus was a pacifist, but he was never passive.

Technorati Tags: Jesus, Just War, Nazi Holocaust WWII, Chris Hedges, Stalin, Bin Laden, Christianity, Peace, Violence

Jesus and War

3 comments June 7th, 2007

A pastor, who is also a friend, is speaking this Sunday in his church on "Jesus and war," and asked me for my thoughts.

First of all I commend him for broaching the subject of war on a Sunday morning. Whatever his conviction about war, and I’m sure it is one of balance, or about our country’s involvement in Afghanistan, or the Iraq war, and here I’m gathering it’s one of restraint, it’s heartening to know there are pastors attempting to make sense of things and to point to some horizon regarding the use of violence.

As a Christian: I believe that the use of violence is wrong, therefore that war is wrong. I also believe that there is no such thing as "just war." And even so-called "just wars" are ways of justifying sacrificial and redemptive violence.

Principally, I believe all of this because I believe that there is absolutely no violence in God.

My starting point, as a Christian, is always the Gospels. I believe that the notion of a divine violence, or divinely sanctioned violence, has no place in the inspiration of the Gospels. And to read any violence into God does "violence" to the Gospel text. Even in the apocalyptic chapters, (Mark 13 etc.) the violence is always traced back and placed at the feet of humans, never on God.

This is unlike the Old testament and unlike parts of Revelation. We might read divine violence, redemptive violence, or sacrificial violence into God, but that is only because we are used to the Old Testament imagery–some of which the New Testament uses–and we are used to a wrathful god that resorts to violence to get things back in line.

Now, if it’s true that a Christian’s lens must be the Gospels, that is, that the rest of scripture needs to be interpreted from the heart of the Gospels, the centre of the passion narratives, and not the other way around, then how would this inform our belief about God? about violence? about warfare?

Janus, Two-faced god (Roman mythology)

The alternative, to my mind, is a dispensationalist, schizophrenic, or two-faced god.

The only way I can make sense of the ’spirit’ of something like the "sermon on the mount," is that this is the heart and nature of God. And the God we think we meet in a couple places in Revelation, as in, the "lamb" that goes to war (unless this is a wholly cosmic battle against the principalities that are at the root of our use of sacrificial violence) is a regressive god. And the god we meet in the Old Testament is a god in process of ultimate self-revelation finally found in Christ. (As Christ says, see me, see the Father.)

It’s because of a gospel-lens that I’ve been brought to embrace pacifism. I’m not, however, a "passivist." There is nothing passive about true Pacifism. But this is another issue.

Now, I’m not saying this is a morally superior position. And I’m open to correction. I’m also aware that in translating my pacifism from paper to practise, in the heat of some personal crisis, some violent event, I would almost certainly fail. But this is not the fault of the gospel, or pacifism and non-violence.

Technorati Tags: Pacifism, Gospels, Peace, Religion, Violence

Mercy in the Merchant

Add comment May 29th, 2007

I’m indebted to Wendy Morton for reminding me of this poem in Shakespeare’s, The Merchant of Venice.

As it stands–as reprinted a couple days ago in the Writer’s Almanac–it’s a fitting entry for Grow Mercy.

However, in the Merchant, Portia, whose words these are, is attempting to persuade the unscrupulous and vengeful Shylock to have mercy on the "noble" Christian Antonio, not recognizing the fundamental similarities between Shylock and Antonio.

Nevertheless, even in Portia’s ironic near-sightedness she speaks truth about the gentle excellence of mercy. And her poetic depiction about mercy is in need of rehearsing and growing.

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself,

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice.

Technorati Tags: William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Peace, Violence

At the Window

3 comments May 25th, 2007

It feels late. Sleep will come.

Yesterday, I was awakened at four AM by a vapour-being, a ghoulish sort of fellow bent on convincing me I was irrelevant.

I laid awake until the sun came up over my city. Then sat at the kitchen window watching.

It was silent. As silent as cities can be. Even the seventh street sirens were quiet for a couple hours.

I sat at the open window thinking about the way street dust smells when flicked by a light rain.

Later that morning I walked by one of our shelters, and–besides wondering how I managed to manage this shelter for seven years–wondered how it was that the faces were all different and the same.

And there are more faces now. And they are spilling out onto the sidewalk.

Today I told the oneiric story–the one that woke me up–to my "therapist" and she gave me her talk on connections–links in a chain–the necessity each of us has, as link, to carry what was good about the past, add to it and place it into a future of possibilities. In other words the necessity for people.

The talk was good, she tells it better than me. But the foot massage was better.

I’m convinced that if everyone got a foot massage like that there would be no crime, no shortage of help for all the faces. Our faces.

And I’m again pointed to the circle of understanding that I can only know mercy as I share mercy and only share mercy when I’ve been shown mercy myself.

Technorati Tags: Homelessness, Hope Mission, Beauty, Peace

Going Pentecostal II

Add comment May 23rd, 2007

If only Pentecost hadn’t been so fleeting, and so quickly misunderstood and misused….can you imagine? Is it too late to re-understand it, and get it right, re-understand all of what happened in that part of the world back then, and experience it as a positive rather than negative force in the world? (A comment on yesterday’s post)

Never too late…we have recent examples and living examples of Pentecost-people. Every generation is responsible to remember, relearn and rehearse the spirit of Pentecost.

Even Peter had to relearn the meaning of his own blazing experience. He was given a dream.The contents of heaven were lowered to earth in a sheet and inside he saw all the different species of animals mingled together-in his world the unclean with the clean. It was a reoccurring dream that finally ended with Peter’s face to face receiving of someone culturally, historically, and religiously outside of his circle.

Of this Peter explains, "You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean."

This was Peter’s time to stand beside his new friend, elated, barely comprehending the revolutionary beauty and possibility of his inclusive act.

Pentecost envisions universal restoration. Pentecost is the dream of togetherness, the dream of the sacredness of all things.

But your right, it is still largely a dream in-waiting. We’ve read the stories but we really haven’t been possessed by them. We still prefer the neat divisions of us and them because it’s easier to be over and above than to love. Easier to manufacture division than to merge with differences and work creatively within them.

It is achingly hard to find our meaning beyond divisions because from childhood we have been candle-dipped in ways of pegging others and identifying with any inside group. Some of us even call this a gift of discernment. Thinking it a skill valuable for staying on the righteous side of some line.

The manufacturing of division pretends to give us meaning. But the story of Pentecost gives us our meaning in love, in inclusion, in beauty, in seeing the earth, our world, as sacred, as one.

Technorati Tags: Pentecost, Apostle Peter, Christianity, Peace